CHQ Week 3

There's an interesting symmetry happenning at week three of the Chautauqua Institution's 2015 summer season includes a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a former Attorney General of the United States, and the Chautauqua Opera's staging of Macbeth.

The morning lecture series will take place at 10:45 a.m. Monday through Friday in the Amphitheater. The Week Three theme, “Immigration: Origins and Destinations,” examines current trends in movements of people throughout the world, including but also stepping outside the ongoing American debate over legal and illegal immigration.

The afternoon Interfaith Lecture Series occurs at 2 p.m. weekdays in the Hall of Philosophy. The Week Three theme, “For We Were Strangers in a Strange Land,” wonders whether the welcoming of strangers and the standard of caring may be diminishing or at least evolving, and what its erosion will do to a planet with limited resources, national competition and conflict.

The Rev. Katharine Rhodes Henderson, president of Auburn Theological Seminary, will serve as ecumenical guest chaplain for the week. In addition to the morning and afternoon lecture series is an abundance of various art and entertainment events to support the cultural theme.

Monday

Morning: Patrick Griffin is the Department of History chair at University of Notre Dame. Griffin’s work explores the intersection of colonial American and early modern Irish and British history. He has published work on the movement of peoples and cultures across the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the process of adaption.

Afternoon: R. Stephen Warner is professor of sociology emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago. A sociologist of religion, Warner was elected president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion in 1995, the Religion Section of the American Sociology Association in 2002, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR) in 2005.

Tuesday

Morning: Sonia Nazario is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has spent more than 20 years reporting and writing about large social issues in the United States — hunger, drug addiction and immigration. She will take the stage to discuss her work covering immigration issues and the personal stories of those immigrants, particularly with regard to her book, Enrique’s Journey.

Afternoon: Daisy L. Machado is the Professor of the American History of Christianity at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Dr. Machado also teaches on borderlands issues with a focus on the U.S./Mexico border. For over a decade she has been taking students on an immersion course to the U.S./Mexico border, where the focus of the class includes globalization and women’s labor.

Wednesday

Morning: Ray Suarez is host of Al-Jazeera America’s “Inside Story.” Suarez was with PBS’s “NewsHour” from 1999 to 2013, most recently as its chief national correspondent. He hosted National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation” for six years before joining PBS. In 2010 he was inducted into the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Hall of Fame.

Thursday

Morning: Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th attorney general of the United States, and first Hispanic to hold that position. Currently, he is the dean and Doyle Rogers Distinguished Professor of Law at Belmont University. In his lecture, Gonzales will speak to the American debate surrounding immigration and immigration reform efforts in the federal government.

Afternoon: Jin Young Choi, a native of South Korea, is assistant professor of New Testament and Christian origins at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School. Her research interests involve the intersection of early Christian studies, feminist studies and ethnic-racial studies, as well as cultural studies with particular emphases on the body and affect.

Friday

Morning: Ian Goldin is professor of globalization and development and director of the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford. As an economist, Goldin will conclude the week with an explanation of how the movement of peoples — or “international mobility” — impacts our global economy.

Afternoon: Heather C. McGhee is president of Demos, a public policy organization working for an America in which all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy. Co-presenting with McGhee is her mother, Gail Christopher, vice president for policy and senior advisor at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Additional Lectures

3 p.m. Saturday, July 11, Hall of Philosophy: Dr. Maryanne McGuckin is an international expert on infection prevention and author of The Patient Survival Guide, having served on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and numerous task forces. This event is sponsored by Chautauqua Women’s Club and is part of their Contemporary Issues Forum.

3:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 14, Hall of Philosophy: Alice McDermott is a celebrated author whose most recent book, Someone, is a CLSC selection for the 2015 summer season. Published someone years after her book After This, Someone looks at an ordinary life — its sharp pains and unexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion — lived by an ordinary woman.

Amphitheater Entertainment

Aside from the daily lectures, Week Three features a variety of evening entertainment programs in the Amp each night.

At 8:15 p.m. on Saturday, July 11, Chautauqua Opera presents Macbeth with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra and guest conductor Hal France. Led by stage director Jay Lesenger in his final season as artistic and general director of Chautauqua Opera, Shakespeare’s most diabolical couple is brought to life by a Chautauqua favorite, baritone Michael Chioldi, and soprano Jill Gardner in her Chautauqua debut as the scheming Lady Macbeth.

At 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 12, Chautauqua Community Band celebrates its 25th anniversary with a special Amphitheater performance. Founded by CSO musician Jason Weintraub in 1990, the band will perform favorites from their repertoire of patriotic classics.

Chautauqua’s Music School Festival Orchestra, under the direction of Maestro Timothy Muffitt, will perform for the second time this season at 8:15 p.m. Monday, July 13

Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra performs twice during Week Three. At 8:15 p.m. on Tuesday, CSO accompanies the Charlotte Ballet in Residence with director Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux and guest conductor Grant Cooper. On Thursday, CSO performs works by John Williams and Igor Stravinsky, along with a special presentation of Peter Boyer’s “Ellis Island” alongside Chautauqua Theater Company actors, conducted by Rossen Milanov with solo violinist Brian Reagin and stage director Andrew Borba.

Chautauqua’s Family Entertainment Series features Aga-Boom at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 15, in the Amp. Rooted in the unique European theatrical style and universal language of clowning, Aga-Boom cuts through the barriers of language and culture with the art of slapstick, the humor of physical comedy and the delighted excitement of childhood.

Finishing up the week is a performance from Pink Martini at 8:15 p.m. on Friday, July 17. Pink Martini is a rollicking around-the-world musical adventure — crossing genres of classical, jazz and old-fashioned pop.

Day tickets are available for purchase at the Main Gate Welcome Center Ticket Office on the day of your visit. Morning tickets grant visitors access to the grounds from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. for $24. Afternoon tickets grant access from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. for $15. Combined morning/afternoon passes allow access from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. and cost $39. Evening passes grant access from 4 p.m. to midnight — the cost varies based on the evening entertainment. For tickets and information, visit chqtickets.com or call 716-357-6250.

Jim Wertz can be reached at jWertz@ErieReader.com and you can follow him on Twitter @jim_wertz